The Learning Portrait
by OnesLikeMe
Summary: A family caught in the middle of the War in the 1970's tries to find their place in the world and lead a normal life. But everything seems to tell them they aren't meant to. An attempt at a Remus fic that's original and still within canon. R/OC mainly.


_**for strawberry shortcakes  
****and mountain dew  
for they are love and  
without them i would simply parish!**_

**Disclaimer**_: I did not build Hogwarts. Ms. Rowling did. I only play on the grounds from time to time.  
_**Quote: **_"If people bring so much courage to this world, the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break, it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially." – Ernest Hemmingway_

**The Learning Portrait  
**_Reflecting…_

**Chapter One – Nothing Can Touch You **

The relationship between my older brother and I is complicated at best. I suppose most people feel this way about their siblings, but in typical me fashion, I have to believe we are special somehow. Is that self-absorbed? I don't think so. Everyone is unique, therefore each relationship is unique. Or at least, that's how I justify it. And for Talos and me, life was more than a little unique.

We didn't quarrel much as children. That in itself could be considered miraculous, especially considering the nine-month difference in our age. This was not attributed to us being perfect angels or any such nonsense as that. I blame Talos for our lack of argument; he is such a terribly passive person with the people he loves, and overly quiet with everyone. I actually antagonized him every chance I got. Instead of arguing, Talos was quite content to watch me mess up and see the "error of my ways" all on my own. At the time I hated him for knowing so much at such a young age, but in truth he really knew no more than I did. Now that I look back on it, I think he realized that I messed up so often that anything coming from my mouth could be inverted, and there the truth of the situation would be.

He wasn't perfect though. Far from it. He had the kind of imperfections that drove everyone around him completely insane, and caused our parents loads of grief.

My father loved swords and daggers of all kinds, muggle or magical. He collected them voraciously, displaying them proudly in the library, and as often as he could he gave visitors a tour of them. On these occasions, you could pass by the door of the library and hear him explaining loudly of how he came to possess some of the more valuable ones.

"Oh, yes!" he would exclaim, rubbing his chin and puffing out his chest. "This one I acquired on an expedition in India. Lovely little thing, isn't it?" Meanwhile I watched from the doorway, trying to recall when he had ever been to India.

This unfortunate obsession with shiny, sharp things was passed along to Talos. My brother would spend hours a day studying them, looking through books of valuable, collectable swords and daggers. The walls of his room were filled with paintings of knives that I had done for him. Ones with long silver blades; ones with colorful blades; ones with perfectly polished handles; ones with handles of fangs or horns or talons or wood; ones with double blades; ones with dull blades, ones with fanciful designs on the blade or shaped into the blade or carved into the handle or shaped into the handle. Knives of every shape and size imaginable.

Painting is my passion, but I got quite tired of my brother's persistent requests.

One would assume that since we came from a pureblood family, Dad would have sense enough to put magical protection around such dangerous items. Somehow Dad did not deem it necessary to put any extra protection around them other than a simple theft charm that did nothing more than send him a silent alarm. Even though Talos had been caught many times in his youth reaching into the displays to play with them. It seemed as though Dad's alarm had thus far saved Talos from any injury and Dad whole-hearted believed that he would always be able to arrive in time to prevent him from hurting himself.

I don't think Dad realized how horribly Talos wanted his basilisk dagger. Nor do I think he realized how cruel children were, particularly a sibling. When I was bored, I would tease Talos about how he wasn't allowed to hold that dagger in his hands. Its blade gleamed bright in the candlelight, a gleam that reflected in Talos' yearning eyes.

"Dad says you can't play with them. You're too young. Doesn't that just make you mad?" I would laugh. He would never answer to my taunts, only frown, his eyes furrowing. I was young, too young to realize what kind of danger there could be in taunting your siblings. He always ignored everything else I said. I never thought he was actually listening to anything I was saying to him.

That day in July, I had been outside trying to teach our six-year-old sister Julia how to "properly" hunt for gnomes. I had heard that muggles could put a glass to a door and hear what was happening on the other side. So I grabbed two glasses from the cupboard along with Julia's hand, and without bothering to put our shoes on, we scuttled outside.

The ground was still muddy from the morning's rain and mud seeped between our toes. Julia pointed down at her feet and the mud squishing between her toes, and she gave a giggle that only a six-year-old can manage: one that makes everyone look up and giggle along. I took the glasses and put them on either side of my head, demonstrating to her that we had to hold them to our ears. She giggled some more and held out her hand for one, following my lead of putting the glass to the ground. The both of us listened intently, or I did at least, as Julia had no real idea what we were listening for. She only smiled gleefully and giggled at my expression as I listened with all my strength, moving the muddy glass around and making strange faces in the process.

Trying not to giggle myself, I gave her a, "Shush!" I put my fingers to my lips and tried to look serious. Of course, this only made her laugh harder. "We're never going to find a gnome if you can't be quiet!"

What made the situation ten times funnier was the insane giggling coming from under the ground, where our gnome sat listening to our conversation, knowing we were waiting for him to come out from hiding. But he never came out. We gave up our hunt thirty minutes later and had instead contented ourselves with smearing mud all over each other's hair and clothing. Talos chose that moment to come outside.

In his hand was that beautiful basilisk dagger, centuries old. The handle was made from the fang of one of the last basilisks to have been seen in Britain, giving the knife a magic that made its point doubly dangerous. I knew Talos was going to be in deep trouble and I was surprised that Dad had not arrived yet, seeing as Talos would have set off his charm.

I looked up from the ground where I sat, Julia's muddy arms draped around my neck as she giggled in her maddening way. There he was with the knife, playing with an unseen adversary. I stood up quickly, dropping Julia in the process and causing her to squeal as she fell on her bottom on the ground. But I paid her no mind.

"Talos!" I had cried. "You aren't supposed to have that!"

He didn't seem to hear me, or if he did he was ignoring me. And knowing him like I did, I would say it was the latter. I took a few steps toward him, rubbing the mud from my eye as I tried to see him better. The sun was bearing down on us, hot and stifling, its light bouncing off the blade more intensely than the candlesticks ever did. His eyes watched the progress of the blade, watched the glinting sun when its reflection caught in it.

"Talos, you have to put that back! Mum and Dad will kill you! And I won't come to your funeral!" I yelled viciously.

He didn't care. He continued ignoring me. And I can't say I blame him. He waged war for years to get hold of that knife before Dad had a chance to stop him. Now that victory was his, why would he give it up so quickly? Just because his sister said so?

Behind me, Julia made a small, scared noise in her throat. I'm not entirely sure she understood the situation, but I figure she must have picked up the tone in my voice. She looked so pitiful, staring at him from her spot on the ground, covered in mud with an expression of shock and fear on her young face.

I charged at him then, determined to wrestle the knife away from him. I was only 10 years old. While I knew the knife was dangerous, I was more concerned with how angry our parents would be than I was with any of us getting hurt. That's how you are when you are little. Nothing can touch you. We had both broken our share of bones, and even Julia had managed to break a finger once at her young age. No damage had been done that was lasting. Nothing could possibly happen to us that couldn't be cured by a healer.

And so what happened next took several minutes to sink in. One moment, Talos was holding the knife, flailing it about unconcernedly. The next moment, the knife had slid easily into his thigh, blood running smoothly, the sun finding something new to reflect its light on.

I had seen it happen, but I didn't _really _see it. And just before I reached him, the scene seemed so very surreal and yet undeniable that I had to stop suddenly. My muddy blonde hair swung around, the smell of mud mingling with the smell of blood. Behind me, Julia gave a wail. She had followed me and now stood horrified, not understanding what happened to Talos.

My father showed up then, having apparated into the library moments ago. He gave a shout of disbelief as he took a moment to let the scene sink in.

"Olivia!" he called into the house to my mother. His yelling shook the very foundation of the house. "Olivia, come quickly!" He dashed over to Talos, who was becoming weak from losing blood. Talos sank onto the porch, the dagger still in his grasp and still protruding from his leg.

My mother rushed onto the scene, her wand at the ready, and released a chilling scream that reverberated in my heart and petrified me more than anything else I had seen. I hoped I would never have to hear anyone scream like that again.

My father shook her. "Olivia! You must concentrate!"

She pushed him away and sank to her knees, cradling Talos' head in her lap. "No, no, no. Broderick! My son! Oh, my goodness, what happened? My son!" she cried.

"Olivia! Please concentrate! I will take Talos on to the hospital. Take Julia and Talona and go to St. Mungo's." He reached in his pocket and pulled out a piece of parchment, touching his wand to it and muttering, "_Portus._" Mum was still howling in despair, shaking as the tears streamed like a river down her face. He shook her again. "Olivia! The children need you!"

She snapped out of her stupor then, glancing over at Julia and me as she got to her feet and ran frantically to us. Julia was still screaming and crying behind me as Mum swooped in and picked her up. She shoved me in the back toward the house. "Go, Talona!" she screamed frantically. "Pick up your feet!"

Talos finally passed out just as Dad scooped him into his arms and grabbed the portkey to St. Mungo's. The rest of us headed for the floo and arrived several seconds later. I stared in frozen disbelief as the healers swooped in on Talos and took him away to some unreachable place where I was not allowed to venture, where I was not allowed to see what happened to my brother. Mum tried to follow, but Dad cut off her frantic attempt, trying to assure her that he would be okay and that all we could do was wait now. When she realized finally that she really could not follow, she collapsed into my father's arms and sobbed. "Broderick, what am I going to do?" she asked softly. The softness of her voice scared me almost as much as her screaming. "That's my son, I can't lose my son."

I had a sudden urge to be as close to them as I could be, and together with Julia, we wrapped our arms around waists and legs as they wrapped their arms around us.

The healers saved his life that night. He had lost much blood, and the blood would not stop flowing from the cut. A magical plug was inserted and the skin healed up around it. He was given three blood-replenishing potions and sent home after one week. But even today, Talos has lasting damage from the magic of the blade. Every night he must take a potion for pain, then do stretching exercises in his leg or the potion will have no effect. If these measures aren't taken, he suffers a great deal of paralyzing pain from his neck to the plug.

I began to look at my brother a shade differently after that day. Visiting him in his hospital room afterward, he acted as though nothing more had happened to him than a simple check up with a medi-witch.

"Talona, I'm perfectly fine. What's all the fuss about?" he had the nerve to tell me.

I personally wanted to strangle him for being so calm about something so dreadful. Yet at the same time, I admired him. It's completely idiotic because all he really did was act like a typical prat of a boy. But he took the hit and survived, coming out a little smarter for the experience and never letting the incident affect his love of daggers and swords. I couldn't help but think he was very brave. I had never known he was like that at all. I realized for the first time that Talos was capable of a great many things, and nothing could stand in his way. If you tried to stop him, he would just keep coming.

That's why I was not in the least bit surprised when he was sorted into Gryffindor less than two months later.

That day was the beginning for me. It was the beginning of a new and scary world that I had not known existed. It proved to me that the darkness could touch us if it wanted to. That we were not as untouchable as I had thought and that terrible things could happen that would affect us the rest of our lives. That life changing event prepared us for a world that was filled with darkness. It prepared us for what our parents had tried to keep us so blissfully unaware of: The Dark Lord Voldemort.

It also made me terribly grateful that Talos was my older brother.


End file.
